A Humble Life
by MeddyGrey
Summary: Post MGS Snake gives up on nearly everything after Shadow Moses. After traversing the wilderness between Alaska and Washington, he is left to find a new reason to live in the city of Seattle.
1. Prologue: Out of the Wilderness

A/N -- This is my first MGS fic. It's set up to diverge from canon right after Shadow Moses. I will take some techie liberties with stuff like nanomachines and viruses, but hey, if Kojima can pull crap out of his butt, so can I right?

I'm relatively new to the MG world, but I've gotten hooked on it after watching my husband play 1, 2, and 3 after buying the box set. Needless to say, I heart Solid Snake.

-SL

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A Humble Life

Prologue

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He'd made it.

Cold rain poured over him, washing his dirty hair into his eyes. He swiped at the strands absently, taken with the sight of the city in front of him. A twinkling line of electricity and life, shimmering against the almost constantly rainy night sky, for a moment, it brought him to a sense of awe that before now only the grandeur of nature's own spectacle would have done. Nearly four months it had been since he'd last laid eyes on a heart of civilization, weeks and weeks spent in some of the harshest wilderness he had ever traversed, but now he was here – a jungle of it's own, the city of Seattle.

There had been cities he'd passed, highways crossed along the way, but only now did he dare to re-enter a heart of mankind's dealings. It had been the deal he'd made with himself when he left Alaska -- it was just himself versus the wild, and nothing but unless he survived to Seattle.

In all honesty, now that he found himself walking along the state highway that led across part of the sound towards the city center, he hadn't expected to ever arrive. Or at least something in his heart had hoped that the forests and mountains would have swallowed him whole, but that would have been too simple, really, and his mind oftentimes had this frustrating ability to trump what his heart wished. He hoped he wouldn't make it, but he knew he could.

And now that he was here, the question that he'd been wishing to avoid was ringing in his mind: what now?

It wasn't as if he'd never been alone before. After all, most people who went to live in the parts of Alaska that he'd spent his time between missions were those who wished for the stark solitude of the last American frontier, but this time… Well, this time no one else actually knew where he was, and he had no surefire way of knowing where to find the people who might care to know that he was still around.

There were only three people who actually knew that he hadn't been killed during the Shadow Moses incident: Colonel Campbell, with whom at this point he had no wish to have any more contact; Meryl, who was part of the reason he'd gone on this recent journey and who he was sure didn't care much at all where he had gone off to, and deservedly so; and last, Otacon. Maybe he'd find a way to let at least Hal know that he was OK, and apologize for not being there to start the project they'd been talking about. He'd tried Codec a few weeks back and found that it was flat out not working, and he was still unsure of why.

He felt the cold stares from people in their cars as they passed him. He was sure that this wasn't normally a foot path to get into the city, and that he must be a sad looking figure in his tattered clothes with an old oilcloth draped over his back to keep the drenching night's rain at least out of his pack, his head and face a mass of wild overgrown hair and beard, like the mane of a mangy old lion. Likely to them, another of the countless vagrants that came to raid the dumpsters and sleep in the alleyways of the city, certainly not a much-valoured warrior, and definitely not the man who had single-handedly stopped the menace of the Metal Gear from ever being known to anyone beyond the highest levels of the military and government.

_"I'm sure that there's plenty of real war heroes on the streets… normal guys turned into monsters of war, then forgotten about, thrown away to let their demons eat them away in the gutters,"_ he thought, shooting a sharp look at a woman on her cell driving a large, gaudy SUV, whose haughty disregard of him turned to mild fear when their eyes met – the lion may be mangy, but he's still nothing to take lightly. She tore her attention away from him and sped on faster than before, even cutting off a couple cars down the road.

_"Men far better than I ever have been… Men who chose to serve their country, men, born, not made, who had lives and hopes and dreams beyond the war and the battlefield."_

He kept his pace: steady, slow, meaningful, his body at that place just on the edge of exhaustion, where in his training he could force himself to go on almost indefinitely. He had traveled thusly since he had grabbed the sparest of his gear and belongings and walked into the woods alone and didn't look back. His intention then was chasing his own mortality, to see if fate wanted to have her way with him. But like the other woman in his life, fate had decided to reject him and send him on his way, to try and figure it out for himself. And as he walked on, he felt that perhaps he was to find a new fate here; either that, or he felt it fitting to fade away in the streets with the other forgotten refuse of war.

Once on the other side of the bridge, Solid Snake did what he was best at: he disappeared silently into the shadows of the city.


	2. Chapter 1: With the Hobos

A/N -- I don't know what it is, but I'm going pretty slow in writing this compared to my usual pace. I think I'm having a harder time than normal wrapping my head around Snake, but it's kind of exciting. (I'm also having the worst vocabulary block... man I can't think of some words to save my darn life!) On with chapter one...

He'd just survived alone in the wilderness for longer than many people could make it living off of minimum wage, but somehow the alleyways and abandoned warehouses of Seattle's industrial district left him feel colder and emptier than the frozen tundra of the Canadian no-man's land ever had. Sopping wet concrete and crumbling old steel buildings served as a stark cradle for the lost and forgotten citizens of the city. The sun, a part-time resident of this part of the country, was absent, replaced with the ever-present gray canopy of clouds, bringing with it everything from misting drizzles to driving, stinging sheets of freezing rain.

The first night he'd spent huddled between two buildings on the waterfront, mercifully out of the wet, though the wind had swept along the highway at such force that he was soaked to the skin despite use of his oilcloth covering. To have finally found a place to roost after so many weeks of going, going, going… he fell into a shivering, but relieved slumber beneath a familiar ally – a sturdy old cardboard box.

…

"'Ey fella…"

Thump… thump…

"Dude's dead, bro, let's just take his shit and leave 'im for the cops."

Thump… thump…

"I saw him move, I swear, and I want my danged box back."

Thump… thump…

"I dunno, man, if someone were kickin' me like that I'd pro'lly wake up and kick his damn ass."

Thump… thump…

"Ok… well if he ain't dead, he's gettin' there. 'm takin his bag…"

The indigent reached a gloved hand down towards the well-worn standard military issue pack, and before he knew what was happening, the stranger in his box was suddenly behind him and he felt the prick of icy steel held dangerously close to his neck.

"Who are you? Why are you here? TALK!"

The man stiffened and trembled in fear while his companion scurried himself against a wall, nearly babbling. Wide eyed, he could only see some dark brown hair, as he dare not more his neck with what he knew had to be a very sharp knife held to it, and an immensely strong hand pinned his wrists together behind him.

"TALK!" the stranger's gruff voice demanded impatiently.

"I… I… wasn't gonna do anything man, don't kill me damn please don't kill me you were just sleepin' in my box and…" he trailed off, terror gripping his mind again.

"And what?"

"And you wouldn't get up… and and and… I didn't mean nothin', I just thought… a lotta guys freeze at night and you didn't get up and … dead guys don't need stuff anymore… and and… you were in my box…"

"You're… not armed…" the stranger's voice sounded confused, though the knife and the grip did not let up in the slightest.

"Shit man, shit no, I ain't got nothin'… man I just thought you'd frozen man. Come on, don't kill me, I'm just a harmless ol' tramp didn't mean you no harm…"

The haze of battle instinct and reflex began to clear from Snake's head. To wake up so abruptly from a dead sleep would put him into no other mindset but the highest of alarm, but now he was almost embarrassed – no only was he holding up a harmless old bum, but he had let himself sleep so deeply that it had taken a number of kicks to the ribs to even wake up. He was lucky: in most instances in his life, such a folly would have left him dead.

He lowered his knife and released the man's hands in one fluid movement and moved to face him, knife still held in ready. He peered back and forth between the men, the first, now slowly wobbling down to his knees, with tears streaming down his dirty face, seeping into his yellowed grey moustache. The other man, still cowering in the corner, had gathered some trash bags and rusty galvanized plating around him in hopes that Snake couldn't see him, but it was a pitiable effort.

"So this is your little…" Snake looked around while searching for the right word, "home of sorts?"

"Man, just have it… we've been run off from nicer places, just don't do anything to us, man…" the first guy said, still crying, from where he had fallen apart.

"Yeah, dude, just let us go and we'll make sure to keep away from psychos like you…" the hiding guy's voice piped up.

"Jorge, shut the fuck up, man!" the first guy spat back.

Snake sighed and thrust his knife back into his belt. He turned his back on them, to him an obvious indication that he perceived them to be such a minute threat that they didn't even merit his attention. However, he proceeded to gather his bag, oilcloth and jacket, then placed the box he'd spent the night in respectfully back where he had found it. Wordlessly, he began to walk away.

The two men exchanged glances. The first man stumbled back onto his feet while the other came out from his hiding place, but they both stared for a moment at Snake's retreating form, utterly confused as to what had just transpired.

"So… you didn't want our pad… our stuff?" the one named Jorge called to Snake as he tiptoed his way out from the trashbags.

"Man… he's leaving, don't get him to come back!" the first guy whisper yelled back at his friend with a wave of his gloved hands.

Snake stopped where he was, and took another moment to consider if he should just keep walking or talk to the men behind him. He looked back over his shoulder, his steely blue-grey eyes tired, but as sharp as ever.

"I'm not here to take anything from anyone," he stated to them plainly, then turned away again. "Sorry for using your box."

Snake rounded the corner of the alleyway and squinted at the harsh morning light. The rain had let up for the time being and the sun peeked its way through a hole in the clouds and created a sparkling glare across the still wet asphalt. He stopped, dropped his pack in front of him and squat-leaned against the building behind him and began to try and collect his thoughts while he took in the landscape around him.

His thoughts wandered as the adrenaline in his blood washed away after his abrupt awakening, leaving him still weary and in a place of dreamy contemplation. Like when the alcohol's left with the morning after drinking away the troubles that were too much, or at least too feared to be faced, Snake felt each painful memory, each question about himself and who or what he was come trickling back now that he no longer had to focus on merely surviving as he had in the wilderness. Wishful thinking, too, much like the drunk he paralleled himself to, that somehow there would be no other end of the road he'd set himself down.

Failure… the first ghost to come haunting him, the one that had been by his side when he decided to walk away to wherever his feet would go, walk away, he was better off anywhere else besides being there like a knife in her side. Meryl…He hadn't thought about her in weeks, but when he had first set out and for days upon days thereafter, she was all he could think about.

_I ruined us. I ruined her. If only… she'd never been there at Shadow Moses, if she'd just got out when I first saw her. What they did to her… how they hurt her because of me, to get to me and yet – she endured. Stupid Meryl, if you'd only known what you were getting yourself into, you would have pushed me into Wolf's crosshairs yourself. If only you'd known there was no one beneath the soldier's uniform, nothing but a twisted shadow, a man who doesn't exist…_

He looked up, brushing his overgrown hair out of his eyes and squinted at the sun reflecting off of the waters of the sound beyond the docks in front of him, and for a moment he was reminded of their escape from Shadow Moses over the arctic tundra; he could almost hear her trilling laughter, nearly smell her fragrance, one too feminine, too delicate to belong to someone who had desired to be a battle-hardened soldier.

_I wanted to make her happy, I wanted to be happy, wanted to live like Naomi said, to believe all of the lofty things that came out of my own stupid mouth… but when it came time to strip away the layers of years spent as nothing but a dog of war… Nothing. I… I'm not even my own person… never was at the start… maybe I never can be anything more than some living puppet, made only for the purpose of killing… I must be fooling myself to think that maybe…_

_Maybe I could become more than what I was designed to be._

"Er… ahem…"

Almost as if he had been kicked awake again, the gravelly voice startled Snake out of his thoughts and instantly sending him into full-on battle-readiness. From the corner of his eye he could see his two 'friends' from the alleyway standing at a cautious distance with the most odd mix of apprehension and hopefulness on their faces. He nearly sighed, dropping his guard instantly.

"Can I help you with something?" he grunted back, turning over his shoulder to look at them, making sure to peer especially sharply at the shorter, Hispanic-looking fellow, to do nothing but make the man tremble a little. The man shrank back, with a look on his face that reminded Snake of a small dog with its eyes as wide as its head, cowering and shaking with fear. This mental image made Snake have to stifle a perverse grin, though it was relief to feel lighthearted for a moment.

"Duuuude… I knew this was a bad idea…" Jorge whispered to his companion as he inched his way further and further back towards the alley.

"Um, yeah, mmm…" the old guy stammered, trying to get past his justified fear of Snake. "Just… thought maybe you're new 'round here. See me and Jorge," he nodded at the shrinking man behind him, "this's been our place a long time now, Seattle I mean, 'n you just look like someone new to the 'life'. Well, like, we thought maybe we got out to a bad start, man, you know, trying to take your shit 'n all…" the guy scratched at the back of his scruffy head sheepishly when he heard Snake snort at the mentioning of their first encounter. "Anyway… we just thought maybe we could, y'know, pay ya back a little by showin' you 'round the place, meet some folk who could help when a guy's in a jam, like it is sometimes. We know a lotta people out here. So… ah, whaddya' say, man? Wanna kick around with us ol' tramps, least 'till you know the ropes?"

Snake's first instinct was the blow them off -- he was more than sure that he could figure this place out on his own, and what he could possibly get out of these two old hobos, he didn't think much of. But as he was about to tell them where to put their offer, he caught himself. This was something a little too much like him – to believe that he was better off on his own. Being whoever 'himself' was hadn't gained him very much, hadn't made him satisfied with his life. And some of the best people he'd come to know were people he'd tried his hardest to get to leave him alone: Otacon came first to mind – such a strange odd couple friendship they had, but he couldn't think of many people he'd had such a useful and easy relationship. These guys certainly weren't his friends at this point, but he made a choice: to leave the door open to what may come. To be a little less like himself, whatever that meant.

"Well… alright. Show me around." He picked up his things, and the other two, smiling with relief, came closer to him now.

"Great! Just call me 'Man', 'cause that's what everyone calls me. Dude's Jorge." They both held their hands out in greeting.

"Jorge, Man," he said to each of them as they shook hands. "Call me… Shadow, at least for now."

"Nah, nah, we get it. Everyone out here's got a past," Man said to him.

"Ey, Man, let's find som'n to eat, I'm starvin'," Jorge complained before they chose a direction to head out in. "Let's check out what we can find at the tourist market!"

"Good one, dude, good call! Well, erm, Shadow, we'll start out with the finest dining we can get out here. Pike's is just about a half-hour's walk. You game?" Man gestured his thumb southward down the waterfront road.

"Sure. Haven't had much to eat for a few days…" he told them, hiking his pack onto his back and stuffing the oilcloth between the straps.

They began on foot down out of the warehouse cluster, Snake finding a strange sense of ease walking with these two old stray dogs. They carried themselves so lightly, and though their faces were dirty and lined by years spent in the sun, there was a brightness, a freedom in their eyes. He was grateful that these were the first street people he met in the city, felt lucky even, that he was welcomed by a friendly portion of what he knew had to be a more complicated and broken population.

"Well there, fella, was just thinking," Man began, breaking the silence that had sunk over them. Snake cringed internally; somehow he felt a shoe above him, hovering on a string… "Jorge and I notice that you're sharp, real sharp, good with that knife too. We've been havin' a little problem with a group of toughs that've been bustin' up some of us free boys of the street, but even worse, like roughin' up the ones that don't have their heads on straight, you know?" he spun his finger around his temple. Snake nodded, knowing what was coming next. "Well we were wonderin' if you could help us out a bit, you know, we help you, you help us, keep 'em off our backs at the very least. Whaddya say?"

The shoe dropped. He sighed for real this time, winced his eyes and looked over at their almost-comically expectant faces.

"Oh… sure, why the hell not? Got nothing else to do, I guess."

"Great! Great! Well, dude, we gotta take you to meet the fellas after we get some eats. You'll love 'em, they're a real bunch of bastards, but they're good, most of 'em…"

Snake listened to Man go on and on, but the only thing running through his mind was his amazement that no matter where he went, he seemed doomed to help people. But as soon as that realization sunk in, it didn't seem so bad anymore. Maybe, he thought, this could be something about himself that he could build around on his way to try and make himself more than a mere shadow.


	3. Chapter 2: An Interlude after Food

A/N -- Thanks to the couple of you who have been reviewing. I try not to let reviews fuel my writing, but honestly, they sure do help me feel like someone else is enjoying this and not just myself. So, thanks Andi and Tzeentch, your feedback actually means a lot.

This chapter's more of an interlude, and somewhat lighthearted, but I liked how it came out. I guess I could have attached this to the next chapter, but in favor of not being too long, and to get this up as I go into the workweek, I cut it off here.

-SL

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The Pike's Place Market had been a veritable hive of activity, the damp weather altogether ignored by most, though he could pick out the most glaring of tourists who had obviously not done any research on the climate they were headed into by their lack of overcoats, and in some cases, pairs of short. Food was in no short order; restaurants touting the best of whatever Seattle was famous for, be it seafood and chowders, local produce, and the pungent aroma of smoky dark-roasted coffees brewing from every corner. Even for those who had no money to buy food, as was the condition of Snake and his new companions, there was a lot of stuff being thrown out that was still fair game for even the most sensitive of stomachs, be it leftovers from people with enough money to waste food, or recently expired merchandise from the vendors. The abundance was an obvious pull for anyone on the streets in need of food; however, the trick was that the area was heavily guarded, be it by police or shopkeepers, both with the goal of keeping any 'unsavory' individuals from scaring business away. This was a Solid Snake worthy challenge.

But as this was his first visit, and that he didn't want to give away all of the 'family secrets' and get Man and Jorge any more excited about his potential value to their livelihood, he chose to hang back and observe them do their 'thing'. It also gave him a chance to make mental notes on the layout of the area, places with potential to hide, and how he could get to his 'goals' in the most efficient way possible. The only pity was that he knew he couldn't get away with using his M9 on any of the civs; some of those shop keepers were real bastards.

After the good couple of hours they spent tiptoeing and dumpster diving around, Snake found himself stuffed to the gills with all of the tasty tidbits that Man and Jorge had collected. As they lounged out on a covered walkway near the waterfront, a pleasant food coma overcoming the three of them, Snake was surprisingly impressed by the stealthiness of the other two men. There wasn't anything in their mannerisms before that would have tipped him off to any skills of the sort with either of them: Jorge was small, but he didn't move with any grace or finesse most of the time, and Man… well, he was a big old guy, and pretty old to – had to be at least in his sixties. But when it came time to go out there and get what needed to be gotten, food being the most primal of these, they transformed into phantoms of the alleyway, the stairwell, anywhere they could blend in and disappear, where they could wait with the patience of a saint for that one person to leave a shop, for a cop to finally walk a few feet further before they'd move with sudden speed and make off with their quarry, no one else the wiser.

"Pike's is the feast, dude," Jorge said lazily, "at least for guys like us who's got the skills to not get caught, and that's not too many." Snake glanced over at Jorge and he could see him beam with pride, the lines on his face pulled deeper and his large teeth made the small man appear even more cartoonish than usual. This made him have to stifle a grin for the second time that day.

"You get enough, dude?" he asked Snake.

"Did I ever. I haven't had that much to eat for… god I don't even know when. Before I set out on my own, even. Girl I was livin' with wasn't much of a cook, and neither am I, so it's really been a while," he told them easily, but this own mentioning of Meryl made him darken a bit.

"Meheh… wimmin," Man said, implying some universal knowledge of the wiles and ways of the 'fairer' sex. He produced a small, beat-up looking red box from the inside of his jacket, and tapped a couple of white and yellow objects into his hand. "Ey there, ol' Shadow, you a smokin' man?" he waved one of the sticks at him

Snakes eyes lit up with a special sort of sparkle when he saw the precious little roll of sweet, sweet tobacco waving in front of his face like a flag of victory. It had been three months since he'd smoked his last cig; he'd even rationed them, at first, one a day, then one every couple of days. When he'd gotten to his last four, one a week. He'd spent his time with that last drag on top of a rocky cliff, watching the sun go down over the trees below, savoring every last puff. Then, he spent the next two weeks with a little less wherewithal than he had before – the only week he'd come close to actually dying out in the wild.

He hadn't been paying attention to what he was doing, preoccupied with the hunger in his belly that seemed more piercing than it ever had before, the irritability and impatience he'd been trying to hold back, all classic signs of withdrawal, that while spearfishing, he tripped over a branch that was jutting out of the log he was standing on, plunging himself into the frigid waters of a river and walloping the back of his head on the log on the way down. Dazed for good minute, water nearly entering his lungs, he finally fought his way back to the surface and thrashed himself against the current with everything he had, and somehow reached the riverbank before he passed out completely. He awoke some hours later, soaked to the bone and freezing cold, his head swimming from the water and the lump forming where he'd hit the log, and some deep gashes in his legs from being tossed over branches and rocks in the river. Another hour's hobble, shivering and stumbling, he found his way back to where he'd set up camp, and to his luck, in his irritability that morning, had forgotten to douse his campfire. Bad normally, he'd thought, but it probably saved his life, because he had just enough strength to throw some branches into the embers and strip off his soaked clothes before exhaustion sunk him into a heavy sleep next to the warmth.

It had taken the next couple of days for his clothes to dry completely in the cold and damp weather, leaving him nothing but his standard military issue poncho and poncho liner to keep him warm. Not that after a couple of days he'd be feeling so cold: one of the cuts on his leg had become infected and he was overcome with a fever, which left him with just enough strength to try and clean it out as best as he could with boiled water and tend to the campfire before he had to give in to the fatigue brought on by the infection. A week after his fall, he woke up with barely enough strength to throw another log onto his campfire; as he was succumbing to sleep again, he had the strangest calm feeling wash over him, and he was almost sure that it was over, that he had indeed met his end. And in that moment, he felt an unexpected pang of regret, over what, he wasn't sure, but it left him a little less content to go quietly into death.

Much to his surprise, he awoke to a sunny afternoon the next day, his fever broken and his strength rapidly returning. He'd survived again, as he always did in situations where it seemed like all was over, but for the first time he found himself wondering if there was some reason for it all, some reason he was still alive after everything he'd been through. He'd nearly forgotten about this incident, but as it had been precipitated, it was brought back: with a cigarette.

"Yoo hoo, big guy? Still there?" Man waved his hand in front of Snake's glazed-over face to try and regain his attention after Snake got lost in his own thoughts for a few seconds. His eyes snapped back into focus instantly, back on the cigarette in Man's hand.

"Yeah, just remembering something… Haven't seen a smoke for a few months now. I think this is the first time I've had the stuff out of my system since I was a teenager," he eyed the tempting treat again, torn. He smiled, "I've had people giving me crap for years to quit, and for what it's worth, I suppose I finally have."

"That shit'll kill you, man," Jorge piped in, disgustedly, "smells like ass too."

"Smells better than your ass, dude," Man shot back at his friend.

"You can kiss it then, bro. Now, I'll tell you what a good smoke is; a little of the ol' Juanita. That's a lady I could kiss all day."

"Not gonna argue that, but I found me these a couple'a days ago and, who am I to let 'em go to waste?" the older man shrugged. He turned back to Snake, "It's ok, fella, don't gotta justify anything to this ol' tramp. I'll just tuck that one back away for another day… or if you change yer mind."

The old vagrant produced a book of cardboard matches, no doubt taken from outside one of the Pike's restaurants, folded the back over the striking strip, and pulled a match to life. Cupping the fire every so carefully from the wind, he held it to the cigarette already between his lips and inhaled the flame into the tip of the tobacco. It lit a smouldering red, and he shook the match out, flicked it to the ground, then took hold of the glowing cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and blew a great cloud of smoke satisfiyingly into the air. It swirled between them, the sweet tobacco smoke finding Snake's nostrils, greeting him like an old love, bringing strings of memories to the surface of his mind of other times he'd enjoyed the same smell, the same taste while mixing with the fresh and salty smell of the sea. His heart pounded; he knew he still craved to hold one, to pull the smoke into his lungs and have it join with him again. Another choice: was the man he wanted to become really a smoker?

"You sound like you're a military man," Man said to him between slow draws on his cigarette, not paying any attention to how Snake's blue-grey eyes were following every move of what was in his hand.

"What make you say that?" Snake replied cryptically, still fighting a mental battle against the smoke in the air.

"There's a lot've 'em out here right now," he ashed onto the concrete, the battle continued to rage, "Military action's been escalating, 'specially after President Sears got elected… good thing that bastard's resigned over that whole terrorist thing last year." Snake cringed inwardly at the mention, even tangentally, of Shadow Moses, but retained his external composure, he thought that perhaps his out-of-control beard helped hide his facial expressions, probably the only thing he liked about be that poorly groomed.

"Meh, the new guy's gonna be just as much of a douche as Sears," Jorge quipped.

"Well, erm, either way, there's a lotta guys gettin' discharged or skippin' out without leave that're down 'n out, some of 'em got the post traumatic stress whatchacallit, some of 'em got their minds blown from drugs or god knows what they saw or did out there. It's gettin' to be like 'nam all over again..." Man looked sad for a moment, enough so that Snake was distracted from his cigarette thoughts and returned to talking.

"Thought that was what was happening. Yeah, I'm ex-military, if you couldn't tell from before, unless they're training civs for combat now. Don't have much love left for the service, hardly for the country, at least its government. Hasn't done anything but bring me and people I've cared about a lot of trouble and loss," Snake told them, finding no harm in telling them the barest of basic facts about his situation, the rest... well, the rest he'd be best off telling no one. Not that they'd believe him anyway.

"You from here originally? Comin' home?"

"No... I grew up all over the place," he began, hesitant to even answer, but the cigarette smoke in the air dividing his attention enough to make him just a little loose-lipped. "I've been involved with the military as long as I can remember."

"Army brat, no doubt?" Man assumed. Snake said nothing, but allowed him to hold onto his assumption – not an outright lie. "So you get discharged up here?"

"I... I can't talk about it, really..." Snake did his best to feign sounding troubled; not that his time as a soldier wasn't disturbing, but emotions really weren't the reason he had to avoid the subject. He lowered his head, trying to look despondent.

"Aw, fella," Man said, compassionately, patting Snake on the shoulder, "don't think anything of it, I'm just a-flappin' my ol' lips. We've all got our ghosts out here, don't you think you're the only one."

Snake continued to look down, however, but for a different reason: the proximity of the cigarette was almost unbearable now, and it was taking everything he had to resist snatching it from Man's lips and claiming it for his own.

""Ey, Man, don't go makin' the Big Guy upset! Dude," Jorge scolded Man, leaning over to talk to Snake now. "Hey, you, ol' Shadow, we ain't tryin' to be dicks. Need anything to help you feel better?"

Snake's head snapped up quickly, eyes sharp and mildly crazed.

"Yeah. I want that cig after all."

As Man handed Snake the cigarette and his matches, Snake knew that this was one battle he'd lost, but was not sad at all for the losing. As he savored that first drag, he decided that there wasn't any harm in whoever he was enjoying this. He smiled, leaned back, and chuckled along with the other two men and watched the rain come sweeping back over the water.


	4. Chapter 3: To the Dregs

A/N -- I've really been feeling like this story is a new stretch for me, and I'm enjoying and struggling with it at the same time. Wish I could make more progress, but I've got a lot of other obligations right now... oh well.

I'm trying to get more plotline rolling in this chapter, as well as fill in a bit of backstory. I've been enjoying the new characters as they appear, almost by themselves.

-SL

* * *

As the day burned on into the afternoon, and the winter rains resumed their normal post blanketing the region, Jorge and Man thought it was high time to introduce their new friend to some of their friends that usually made camp further on down the docks where they had met that morning. Man made sure to inform Snake that there were a lot of veterans and AWOLs down there, though most of them weren't really the kind of folks he enjoyed spending time with. A lot of them just had too much of what he called 'the blackness' about them. Snake didn't ask him to elaborate; he was pretty sure that he knew exactly what the old guy was getting at – that emptiness, the haunted looks of men who lost their innocence, lost their minds sometimes, in the brutality of war. He knew he must wear a little of the 'blackness' around his edges, noticable moments where he was lost in a memory of friend he'd lost, a massacre he'd witnessed, after a dream where he found himself somewhere that he never wanted to return to. But it never stayed, never took hold of him enough for it to show. Whatever it was about him, the fact that he'd been trained to fight and taught the ways of war since he was old enough to hold a pistol and not kill himself with it, or perhaps that it was just a part of who they made him to be -- an altered clone of arguably the best single soldier to ever walk the field of battle -- the onus and guilt never set in so much. The regrets, though, they did. And more recently, the questioning.

He remained characteristically taciturn for most of the walk with the two men, spending more time listening, observing, as was more of his instinct, than to speak and leave himself open to say something that he didn't want known. He wondered, perhaps, some day he might find it in himself, or at least the right person, where he could speak more, without guarding every spoken and unspoken word between them, where he didn't have to worry that what he said might come back to kill him, or worse, kill other people.

His thoughts drifted to Otacon and Meryl, the last two people he could be unguarded with. Meryl... for some reason, he just couldn't seem to open up to her, especially they way she wanted him to. She'd always tell him about herself, and suddenly expect him to just go ahead and do the same thing. He couldn't seem to figure out how to explain to her that he just didn't do that; he wasn't an 'in touch with his feelings' sort of guy. He guessed she must have needed that, whether she realized it or not; another reason he failed her.

With Hal, though, while his relationship with Meryl fell apart day by day, his friendship just seemed to take off in a way that only he and Frank Jaeger ever had, though wildly different in nature. Probably the last person he'd ever have imagined himself to click with, but there was such an easy opposition they had to each other's personality, each other's interests, that there was no stepping on egos. Hal never expected Snake to criticize his code-writing, as Snake didn't know even the very basics of let alone binary, and Snake knew that he could break Hal in half if there was ever a physical confrontation. And so they could share the things in between their expertises without any hard feelings, even learn together all the better.

Otacon, after he managed to escape the Shadow Moses base facility before getting caught up in being interrogated by the US government regarding his involvement in the incident (and possibly end up being sucked into designing another nuclear monster), somehow got into contact with Snake after he'd found a place to stay in Anchorage, which just happened to be the closest city to the cabin where Snake had set-up with Meryl. They had taken to visiting Hal on visits to town for supplies, the three of them a comfy group of friends at first. But as things soured between Snake and Meryl, the visits would often be Snake alone, and soon Snake's solo visits were all the more frequent. During those last visits, where sometimes Snake slept on Hal's couch, the two friends had talked about looking further into the rumors of worldwide proliferation of Metal Gear shortly after Shadow Moses resolved, but they never got very far beyond just talk. But in all the talk about Snake's past, who he had been, who he was, began to weigh him down as it never had before, likely helped along by his continual failure to make things work with Meryl, and this sent him stumbling into a deep depression. Snake, who had never dealt with his own feelings in such a serious way before, found himself dulling the pain with alcohol, which led to more and more conflict with Meryl. They had one last argument, a confrontation over being cruel to her the night before while drunk, which culminated in her declaring them done and that she was leaving immediately.

That day, after Meryl had escaped crying into town, Snake felt something break inside him. He felt nothing, except the desperate feeling to disappear, to just cease existing. So as the sun was starting to sink over the trees, he took the barest of his posessions, – his M9 tranq gun, his SOCOM, his favorite headband, his old military camp pack with a pan, poncho, blanket, and oilcloth, and the clothes on his back -- and he left out of the back door of the cabin into the wild arctic frontier with no intention of seeing mankind again. That was only after he'd stared down the barrel of his SOCOM for the better part of an hour, daring himself to pull the trigger. He couldn't even kill himself properly, and here he was now, among the lowest of the low of society, the deviants, the addicts, the insane, the forgotten. He thought himself more than qualified to join the basest of their ranks.

"Well, big fella, here it is, the best little shanty town in Seattle," Man said to Snake as they rounded a large, old warehouse that led to a cracked and pitted abandoned parking lot behind the remains of a derelict container crane. Next to the crane, in its long evening shadow lay a cluster of tents and boxes, lean-tos and a few galvanized barrels with the beginnings of a night's worth of fires.

"They call this place "The Dregs"," Jorge said, hopping down over a short wall, over which he helped Man, who was less agile than Jorge, due to his age and overall larger size. Snake followed them with an easy jump and rejoined them to continue their walk.

"Good name," Snake muttered, the tattered state of the entire encampment more visible now, and he could make out hunched figures moving about, no doubt the little city's inhabitants.

As they approached the outskirts of the camp, they were greeted first by the bottom of the bottom, men and women who couldn't even make the rough shelter that those in the heart of the cluster had. These people that stood talking to themselves, swatting at insects and who-knows-what crawling on their skin and hair that only existed in their sickened mines; people who shook and rocked back and forth and they cradled themselves in their own entwined arms, lost in the horror that was evident only to their own eyes. The worst of the mentally ill gathered on even the fringes of the already fringe society of the homeless, living off what rotten trash they could scrape from the gutters, what refuse or charity they could attract from those in their community who were more able than themselves. Snake had heard of this being one of the larger sub-groups among street people, especially since the United States government had shut down most of their state-run mental hospitals in response to increasing national debt, and also public outcry against the conditions therein thanks to one-sided television journalism. So now, here they were, like modern-day lepers, left to crawl the streets and rot away in their own private hells.

The next group they passed through didn't appear all that much different than the mindless creatures on the outskirts. Some were quiet, in a stuporous sleep, others shouted obscenities out over the water, throwing empty bottles of liquor at the ruined walls of broken-down warehouses. One man caught Snake's eye; a thin, rail of a man, pale and shaking like rattle sat in a corner with a woman of similar appearance next to him. Their eyes seemed intently focused, obsessed even by what the man was working with in his hands, just out of Snake's view. Their faces lit up, ghoulish with deep, dark circles under eyes that were too wide, the hollows of their gaunt faces catching the late-day shadows, giving them the appearance of smiling skeletons. The man reached out and tied what looked like a strip of an old bicycle innertube around his companion's arm, and Snake saw the flash of a shiny needle right before the man plunged it skillfully into the woman's waiting arm, and she closed her eyes in pleasure. Now he knew. These were addicts, complete slaves to whatever their substance of choice happened to be.

As they entered the heart of the camp, the concentration of those with more serious problems became more sparse than they had been on the edges. People still appeared damaged, a man here talking to himself, another asleep next to a bottle of Jack, but he began to see less and less of what he felt like were the stereotypes of the homeless. He began to see mothers with children, entire family units no less, men and women with packs by fires, eating from tin cans, groups of men taking with one another, occasionally raucous, but most just huddling together for human company and shelter from the winter's night ahead. Such a mixed group of people, with likely as mixed reasons for having ended up homeless, spending their days scraping by on odd jobs, handouts, and trash, their nights in abandoned buildings or beneath cardboard roofs.

All the while, as Snake studied every face and tried to fathom what had brought them here, Jorge and Man pointed out every familiar face in the area, from 'Old Drunk Joe', to 'One-tooth Bob' and everyone in between. At last, the stopped before one particular gathering of men around one big pot of fire. These men all had a similar look to that of Man and Jorge – wily-eyed, some almost jovial and comfortable, though not all were quite so content.

"'Ey boys, how's it goin' out here in the shit pot?" Jorge announced his presence loudly and most of the faces in the circle turned to him with friendly recognition. A murmur of welcomes and greetings passed through the circle towards the three of them, well, more like towards Snake's guides and some wary stares and glares towards himself. He peered back at them with just as much suspicion, if not more, making a few of the starers look away purposefully in discomfort. Jorge and Man found a spot to squat down and join the circle, while Snake stood a couple of paces behind them, standing still in the shadow of a metal pylon, still closely observing everyone around him. After a few minutes of watching his two companions greet their friends, Snake felt one last pair of eyes watching him, despite his efforts to become 'unseen', one man whose eyes reminded Snake of his own. He was mildly impressed.

"Who's your little shadow back there, boys?" the sharp-eyed man asked, his eyes never leaving Snake's. He spoke in a voice that commanded, that when he opened his mouth to say something, everyone listened. A leader, obviously, and he knew himself nothing to be trifled with.

"Oh, erm, forgot all about him!" Man said, looking as embarased as he could manage, which was not much more than seeming sheepishly amiable. "Fellas, Jorge 'n me stumbled over this guy over by our place this morning," he put mildly the confrontation that had scared the two of them within an inch of their lives, "he's new in town, calls himself 'Shadow', as coincidence might be... or you're just as perceptive as always, ain't ya, Chuck?" Man shrugged back at the circle of men, then looked back towards Snake, oblivious to the staring contest taking place. "'Ey, big fella, why don't you stop lurkin' 'round back there and meet the gang. These are the bunch we've been tellin' you about all day, come come!"

Snake reluctantly stepped forward, out of the dusk-time shadows and into the orange light that the fire between everyone threw off in licks and lilts. As usual, his comfort lay on the outside of a circle, rather than in it, but he decided to keep playing the game to see where it would take him. It seemed to have become his theme for the day thus far, and had worked out mostly well for him.

"I don't know how we feel about you bringing some new blood in right off the bat like this," the man Man had referred to as Chuck grumbled, which echoed similar grunts and nods across the group, like a flock of ruffled birds all sqwaking in unison.

"Yeah, you know how there's been a lotta troublemakers around lately. It ain't like life isn't hard enough for some of us already. We're not all a bunch of hobos at heart like you and Jorge are," another man chimed in, who happened to be sitting next to Chuck.

"Hey, hey now," Man began back, waving his hands in front of him like a shield, "he's cool, he's not a punk. He tramped around all day with me 'n the lil' frog, nothin' but friendlies in this guy... wouldn't kick 'im while he's sleepin', but..." he trailed off, shrugging, while Jorge rolled his eyes at the older man for even mentioning it.

"He's good, you can hold us to that," Jorge said sternly, and somewhat to Snake's surprise. He rarely met anyone who'd vouch for his character after only knowing him for twelve hours – many people who'd known him most of his life wouldn't say something like that. He knew that the guys were just trying to get him in to have him around for protection, being used as always, but something in the way Jorge had attested to his trustworthiness felt real. Perhaps if they knew how many people he'd killed with just his bare hands, they wouldn't feel so secure with him around.

"We'll see about that," Chuck said quietly with one more glare towards Snake, then returning to watching the fire, losing himself in thought.

"You stayin' in camp tonight? Or are ya gonna try and keep up that little squat or yours?" one of the other huddled men quipped at Man and Jorge. At this point, every new street person that Snake encountered almost looked the same as the next: a large bulk of an old jacket, a mass of hair and a beard, gruff voice. Only on occasion did he see something different going on behind a given man's eyes, as he had with Chuck.

"That's some fine digs we got there," Jorge returned playfully, "We ain't gonna move from there until we want to..."

"Or some punk bastard holds you up and takes it from you," Chuck spoke again, his voice somber and low, "Or kills you while trying. You know folks like you and the old guy are gonna be better sport for these guys, once they've gotten bored with harassing the drunks and the braincases. Just cause there's three of you now doesn't mean dick against even one guy with a gun."

Man smirked with a sidelong glance at Snake, "Well, ol' boy, I'm still feelin' good enough to take my chances. I'm a free man, and I like it that way, see, and I'm gonna do what I can to keep it that way."

"Yeah, I always forget that about guys like you... this was a choice," Chuck replied darkly, "and not an 'only choice'... Well, watch your backs, you know I won't do it for you."

"Well..." Man muttered, put out somewhat by the exchange, his grey moustache twitching unhappily.

"Aw, Chuck, don't be so hard on us ol' hobos, man," another brown-coated beard spoke up from somewhere in the circle, "not all of us are as royal tramps like ol' Man is, we know when to cover our asses."

"Like when you're making them rotten farts of yours?" another voice shot back, erupting the group in laughter, breaking the tension that had been building.

They stayed in the camp for the better part of the evening, Man and Jorge making sure to introduce and share stories about every brown-coated beard in the group, and even a couple of women so buried in their clothes that Snake hadn't been able to tell them apart from the men. Snake remained quiet unless spoken to directly, and dodged answering most questions thrown in his direction, letting Man and Jorge answer for him from what little they knew about him. He noticed, though, that Chuck and a couple of other men who had a similar look about them remained quiet and observant, much like Snake himself.

After the bunch had passed around a small flask of burbon for all to enjoy, Man excused himself and his companions from the gathering to retire back to their place for the night, and the set out for the walk back.

"What's the story with Chuck?" Snake asked after they were a good way's out of the Dregs.

"Mm... don't know a lot about him, 'cept he's ex-military like you. Good guy, overall, but a bit of the darkness about him sometimes, got a hard edge, doesn't trust people. Never been able to figure out completely what he's doin' out here, the man's just so 'with it' but he always maintains that he ain't a free man out here, like me 'n Jorge 'n the other ol' hobos. Tough bastard too; him 'n his couple'a friends'll stand up against the roughs when they're getting really pesky around the camp there... though not all the time." Man scratched the back of his head and looked at Jorge to see if he had anything to add, to which the smaller man only shrugged. "We don't ask questions 'round here if'n a guy doesn't wanna share, like I always say."

Snake nodded. In the back of his mind, the things he had heard that day were bouncing around, and beginning to shape ideas, feelings, plans. His first feelings about Chuck were decidedly paranoid – he was suspicious enough and military enough to have the off possibility of being a plant by the government to keep tabs on him, or possibly take him out. His second feeling was a mild curiosity born out of a feeling of similarity between them, that he wanted to know, if he truly was merely an ex-military washout, how he ended up on the streets. He wasn't sure why this was so interesting to him, but he felt the tug of some sort of purpose calling him in that direction.


	5. Chapter 4: And a Cold Front Brews

_A/N -_

_Well... didn't this turn into a long chapter? I'm actually quite pleased with this one, and am looking forward to continuing. However, I just started school again, and between that and working full time... it doesn't leave a lot of time for writing. But if there's enough people who want more, I could be persuaded to pick up the pace a little.  
Does the length distract from being able to read this comfortably? I can always put the chapters into more than one post. Let me know._

_-SL_

* * *

Over the next couple of days, Snake's hosts took it upon themselves to show them the 'highlights' of the city of Seattle, putting a hold on his curiosity towards investigating Chuck's character any further than their initial meeting. However, despite the fact that he had found Jorge and Man somewhat obnoxious and that he had been miffed that they had invited him along only as a bodyguard of sorts, their company was growing on him, and he could practically feel their easy-going ways and overall friendliness rasping away at his splintery edges. It wasn't like they were going out for beers and sharing secrets, no, Snake hadn't even gotten to the point of talking when it wasn't an absolute necessity, but it was a start. He wasn't _not_ enjoying himself.

What felt most welcome was the distraction. The walking, the constant chattering between the two other men, about this street, about that street, about a creek that's great for a bath in summer, about this house that's often unoccupied and has a loose back door for those times when you just need to feel like you're indoors for a while, whatever little bits of information constantly flowing from them, completely happy to show someone new (and useful) all of the clever and helpful things that they, and only they knew about the town was enough to drown out any of the angst-ridden thoughts that kept creeping back into his head. The tour also helped out with Snake's comfort in the area, as it was natural for him to want to know the layout of where he was, be it if to know the fastest escape route or a good place to hide out. Despite his new location and circumstances, the years of training and combat had deeply ingrained certain habits so that they were mere nature to him, though thinking about this did make him feel as if he were some sort of prowling animal and set him into sudden scowls, baffling his companions with his unexplained change in countenance.

By the fourth day away from the docks they had started at, the weather, though it had already been damp and cold enough, began to turn windy with a frosty edge to it, so much that it began to remind Snake of how some of the worst parts of Alaska had been, when he would hole up in a snow cave or, if he were lucky, a real, stone cave. Jorge caught the end of the local forecast off of someone's car radio when they were crossing a busy street: "...worst cold snap in years, likely the worst snow we've seen in the last thirty if this..." He looked troubled, and told the other men what he'd heard. Man looked more concerned than Snake had seen him in the week that he'd known him, and quickly agreed with Jorge that they needed to start back to the west side of town whence they had come. They were oddly quiet as they turned their path and walked with more purpose than they had before.

"What's the problem?" Snake asked after their silence had gone on long enough that it made even him uncomfortable.

"Ain't you ever been stuck out in a blizzard?" Jorge asked, with a rhetorical edge to his words.

"Yeah," Snake replied, his words plain and not what the other man was expecting back.

"And... this wasn't a problem for you?" Jorge said, somewhat baffled by Snake's response. Snake was beginning to see a trend that he was often a source of bafflement for his new companions.

"I'd hole up somewhere until it let up enough for me to move on if it were an all-out storm, but ... well, I survived a bunch of them," Snake said matter-of-factly.

"You're a tough ol' bastard, ain't ya?" Man said, seeing that Jorge wasn't getting his point across well, almost laughing. "Yup, I can see that, you're honestly a tough bastard, but most'a the folks out on the streets here, they ain't that tough. Hell, most've 'em aren't even as tough as me 'n the lil' guy here, and that ain't sayin' much. Thing is, Seattle's like the easy throw for the street folk, never really gets hot, never really gets cold, a body can make it with out havin' to scrounge up a lot of layers for clothes, don't have to know where the shady spots are, don't have to know what doesn't freeze over. Granted,' he paused with a sly smile, "I do, but I've been around long enough to be that smart. Anyhows, a snow storm can be death for these folk, same with a heat wave – lot of 'em just don't have the been-through-it to prepare or find someplace fast enough before the weather gets 'em."

"People gonna die," Jorge summed up, his face with a far off expression, Snake could only assume remembering a similar situation sometime in the past, but never forgotten.

"Is there any group or something that helps people out?" Snake asked as they crossed a street into a residential neighborhood that they had meandered through a few days prior. The city went by much quicker when walking purposefully back to one place, and though Snake knew where he was and was no novice when it came to orienting himself quickly in a new place, it surprised him how close together their previous destinations actually were.

"Yeah, there's shelters, just ain't enough of 'em," Man replied, rubbing his hands together; the air was already beginning to prick with an icy edge. "Other problem is, folks don't know what's coming 'till it hits... last time, lotta kids and braincases ate it before they could make it anywhere."

"Hrm..." rumbled Snake, beginning to sink back into his thoughts, as had become custom for him after arriving in Seattle, though he wasn't sure he liked rattling around in his own head as much as this.

"Anyway, we gotta make sure we get back to somewhere we can wait out the cold before it hits," Jorge said with a shiver. "Ain't no one like bein' out in that... 'n I don't got a big coat no more... damn putos stole mine couple'a weeks ago. That's why we weren't so big on finding your big ass sleeping in our spot; we're friendly guys, we share our shit, but when little cabron punk-asses start just helping themselves to it, well, you gotta put your damn foot down, man."

"We've got a nice little storage room that the lil' guy found a way into last year, just behind our little alleyway-hideaway back at the docks," Man told Snake with pride. "Completely cement, ceiling's a little leaky, but we can make a fire safe that way, we'll do just fine, just fine, and as our new buddy, ol' Shadow, you're welcome to stick with us during the storm if it suits ya."

Snake grunted, his mind immersed in thought still, of people freezing in storms, of the faces he'd seen of the homeless, many unable to help themselves for whatever reason, faces that flashed in his mind next to the bloodied remains of those he'd known in his days as a soldier that he'd been unable to help. The faces, all moving together in his mind, people that he'd let go because he hadn't the time under the stress of a mission, sacrificed for the final objective, whom he'd never really gotten to know beyond a smile or a first name, whom he'd never mourn because there wasn't time, they weren't important to the mission save the few more miles he'd advanced towards a target. People that didn't matter, he was told didn't matter, like these street people didn't matter to anyone, even themselves.

He could see the docks as they were headed down a hill in the residential district that they were cutting through. There were people down there, humans, lives of men and women, lives worthless to most. The living and the dying of whom did not even merit a glance by the rest of the world as they rushed towards their own objectives, less useful than even fellow fallen soldiers who'd at least served at last as some sort of meat shield against the strike of bullets. But somehow, for whatever strange sentimentality that had taken hold of Snake's mind, he could see even the least of these as people nonetheless.

Tromping down a steep embankment, Snake could make out the twists of smoke rising from the camp to the north, and caught himself wondering how many there were going to be left out in the freezing night; he nearly shook his head at the thought. People! People complicated things; this had been his modus operandi for years, and the philosophy had been reinforced to him over and over again in his life. Even when he'd thought that he had a new chance when he escaped Shadow Moses with Meryl, eventually that had proved once again that he was better off unencumbered with people any more than he had to. He wanted to leave it at that. But the faces... they kept mixing together, one bloody over another insane, alive, dead. And the part of him that had come to life while alone in the wilderness jabbed at him ever so slightly, but oh so persistently. It whispered to him softly: "David... you need people..."

Lost in thought for a number of minutes, he was jolted from his thoughts when he realized that they had returned finally to the place where this little adventure had begun hardly more than a week ago now. The little alleyway appeared untouched, and Man and Jorge set right to digging into well-camouflaged caches behind garbage cans and loose cinderblocks, producing camping gear and what appeared to be kindling and other cold weather provisions. Snake remained where he had stopped, however, his eyes watching them dully, his mind still turning over and over again with questions and feelings.

Man noticed Snake standing back in his entranced state first. "Hey buddy, you ok? Wanna help us get our pad all padded out?" the old guy called to him while tossing a galvanized bucket with the bottom practically rusted away with holes through the tight and normally well-disguised hole in the warehouse wall.

"You guys... you ever help those people out there?" Snake found himself saying before he could stop himself. Jorge and Man paused in their bustling, looked at each other for a moment before deciding on an answer.

"Well... it ain't like we're heartless, y'know, but we got a lot of our own stuff going on... We're just two guys, we keep to our own business most of the time, 'n you know, when it gets like this you just don't know when it's gonna get bad, you know..." Man blabbered on not really getting to what he was obviously dodging.

"No," Jorge finished for him, and Man looked relieved that he didn't have to say it himself. "It's too easy to get burned, there ain't enough of us anyway. It ain't like we never tried, bro. There just too many people out there to help and it's best just to let things go the way they'll go sometimes when there's nothing you can do." Jorge's voice held an obvious tone of defeat, of having seen what happens when people just won't move in time.

Snake found himself about to open his mouth again, but this time caught himself. A large part of him was even more reluctant than his companions to get involved with other people's problems, and he certainly didn't want to twist any arms here; that might seem threatening, and he really couldn't see any reason to alienate the two fellows. Tactically, it's better to keep an ally than to not, after all.

"Ey, big dude, don't let it get to you. I'm sure most've 'em 'll be ok, eh?" Jorge said to Snake, walking up beside the much bigger man; Snake had to be a good six to eight inches taller than the little latino. "We got the pad almost ready, 'n we're gonna cook something... I don't guarantee anything super great, but Man's got a way with making that canned shit taste good on the fire—"

"Don't move you little bastard!"

Snake whirled around and found himself in a combat-ready stance just as a ratty little street punk, wild-eyed and gaunt with telltale signs of drug use on his face, wrapped his arm around Jorge's narrow neck and held what had to be an illegal martial arts knife at his back. At that same moment, Man came blundering back from their rat hole, oblivious to the situation at hand.

"Don't come any closer, you burned out old bum or the cholo gets skewered!" the punk shouted, startling Man into awareness of what was precipitating in front of him.

"Aw, come on, let the lil' guy go... take whatever you want, man, just..." Man began to stammer.

"Do what the man says, kid," Snake began, his voice rumbling and low, soaked in the natural threat that came when Snake entered combat. The punk's eyes darted about, trying not to show that he was intimidated merely by a voice.

"Shut it, both of you!" the punk spat, holding the knife firmer against the back of Jorge's shirt. "This is my place now. I've seen all the shit you got all tucked up in your little rat nest back there, and I want it, and I'm getting it and you're all going to leave or this little brown man's getting a few extra holes in 'em! Go." He gestured with his head for Man and Snake to move out of the alleyway.

"You're gonna let him go, right, man right? Damn it don't hurt the lil' guy, he ain't done anything to hurt no one man," Man sputtered and pleaded as he inched his way past the punk, who was smart enough to at least not turn his back to Snake, who was also moving alongside Man. But Snake was not going to plead for anything, not at all, in fact, while moving slowly aside, while Man continued to blather on, he took the time to watch the punk's movements too. His balance, his physique, telltale signs of mild street-savvy fighting technique, but remarkable stealth. He chided himself for being so distracted that the punk had been able to surprise them. Never again, he vowed, would he be so careless.

"Keep moving. Back out, walk backwards so I can see you," the punk commanded, though Snake could see that the kid was afraid of making eye contact with him, while Snake steeled his gaze on him, unyielding, like the eyes of a jungle cat focused on its prey, though with only thoughts of playing.

"What gives you the right to take from these men? Is it because you're dangerous, because you've got some knife that you don't even know how to use right? Think you're hot shit because you won a couple'a fights with some kids worse off than yourself and now you're entitled to whatever you think you can take?" Snake began. The cat's tail was swishing, the game had begun.

"Shut up, who the fuck are you anyway? Keep moving or I kill this little fucker, ok?" the Punk's voice was growing shrill and less sure of himself. Snake could see his arm tremble about Jorge's neck.

"Dude, Shadow just do what the fuck he says..." Jorge spat out, then gasped and spat when the arm around his neck tightened ever so slightly.

"So you're stronger than someone half your size. You're quite the man, aren't you?" Snake just kept talking, all the while his body and mind in tune with the game of conflict that was his one true sport. His face, if anyone could have seen it beneath his beard, was held in what was almost a smile. It had been so long since he'd played the game that he had forgotten that there was enjoyment in it.

"Dude come on, just just... let's do what he says," Man begged Snake, still backing up himself. But Snake had stopped moving when he began talking, held himself in a neutral pose, ready for any movement that he might need of himself when the moment came. _If_ the moment came, he reminded himself – the punk might still heed his warnings.

"But wouldn't it surprise you, while in one of your little conquests, to come across someone who wasn't helpless in the slightest?" Eyes finally met, trembling glassy punk eyes couldn't tear away from the steely blue eyes that would not waver from beneath a mask of unkempt hair and beard. The cat may be in the bushes, but you know without a doubt that he's watching.

"I'll spell it out this way, if maybe I'm being too obtuse for your mild understanding," Snake continued when the Punk seemed to freeze in their interchange, choosing some of his better ten-point vocabulary just to add a little more mockery – it would either piss the kid off or befuddle him more, "You can put down my friend you have there, or you can get your ass kicked. Your choice."

"Who the fuck do you think you are? Some kind of fucking superhero?" the Punk strained out from behind his fear that was fighting for dominance with his bravado, the knife in his hand trembling with the conflict. Snake could practically taste the fear surrounding the young punk, and continued to wait with ever-practiced patience, his observing eyes never moving away, fixed on the punk's face. He remained silent now, despite Man still sputtering and blathering on as he did, but it was like white noise at this point, a mere background to be ignored beneath his focus.

He practically felt the split second decision spread out like electricity around them, felt it before the punk knew what his choice was, before his brain could send the signal to his hand to move, before he could send the words to his mouth to shout, to brashly call bluff to the man challenging him. Brash indeed, and ultimately the foolish choice.

"Just see what I can do— hurk--!"

It was like dancing, like a fluid art in motion. While other men may express themselves with a brush and a palette, Solid Snake's movements in combat were as beautiful and as breathtaking as a fine work in oils on canvas. The speed that he crossed the few yards in that alleyway, the way his body moved in perfect balance with itself and utter awareness of his surroundings, how his senses joined in perfect harmony to execute his precisely tuned foray into combat caught even his target in stricken awe for the half second before Snake's hands reached their target.

And it was over in another half second. A knife-arm twisted back, a knife handle suddenly had a new owner, the other arm twisted painfully towards the brink of snapping, a knee savagely dug into his spine, and an elbow now around a neck with that growling voice that came along with those unyielding eyes... the voice the punk knew he should have heeded.

"Shoulda' left," was all Snake whispered next to the sweat-drenched face of the bested kid; the feline teeth dug into a helpless neck, curved claws spread into a back. But it's only for play. Snake flipped the knife around to its hilt in the hand that was around the kid's neck, and in one swift rap to the side of the shaved head, knocked the young punk unconscious.

As Snake lowered his bested adversary to the ground, Jorge, who had fallen to the floor and scooted against the wall as soon as Snake had freed him from threat, and Man both walked slowly back towards him, jaws dropped, still not quite sure of what had just happened.

"You... you didn't..." Jorge stammered, looking down at the prone body of the street punk, almost worried, as Snake went to work going through his quarry's pockets and jacket.

"Pff... there's no sport in that," Snake began, with a touch of his old perverse humor coloring his words, though when he heard Man hiccup at that, added, "I'd never kill anyone who couldn't actually kill me too."

"Man... oh, man, I knew we were so right palling up with you, man," Man declared to Snake, patting him on the back after the shock of the situation and the realization that Snake had not done the stupid kid in, however much he deserved having his own threats turned back on him. Jorge, still trembling a bit with the shock and adrenaline of the last few minutes promptly joined Man in lauding Snake's triumph over their most recent oppressor.

"Shit, dude, thanks for doin' that... though for a second I thought you was tryin' to get me killed, you know esse? Damn..." Jorge paused, looking down at Snake pulling bills and other crap from a duct-taped wallet, "Y'know, I was starting to think all that kung fu shit you pulled on the ol' guy there was just a fluke, like your one trick, but hell... You're one fucking badass."

"I don't need any thanks," Snake muttered, standing up and shoving what spoils he found into his own pockets, "It's pretty much all I'm good for anyway. Now," he said with an obvious changing of the subject away from his skills, "You got any rope or tape or something to tie this twerp with?"

"Ah... I got some nylon twine back here..." Man skittered eagerly behind a trash can and produced a wad of blue string, "Think this'll work?"

"Perfect." Snake took it, and proceeded to hog tie the sleeping punk. "Got a pen?" he asked Man again, this time the old fellow producing a black marker from his jacket.

"Ah, it's my emergency sharpie... never know when you're gonna need a charity sign, y'know?" Man went on as Snake began to write on the kid's forehead. It read, in Snake's mildly slanted, extremely legible all-caps handwrting:

"DEAR POLICE:

I TRIED TO HURT SOME HARMLESS PEOPLE TODAY

BUT ONE WASN'T AS HARMLESS AS I THOUGHT.

I HAVE AN ILLEGAL KNIFE IN MY PANTS.

DO YOU HAVE A WARM CELL I CAN SLEEP IN?

THANKS, STUPID KID"

"Police patrol up the street, yes?" Snake asked the other men in a distracted manner, hoisting the still unconscious punk over his shoulder. Man and Jorge nodded, and followed after Snake, somewhat perplexed.

About a half a block down, Snake found the police cruiser, though the night officer was nowhere to be found, doubtlessly trying to scare trouble out from wherever it may be hiding. Snake then set the punk down by the driver's door of the cruiser, face up, and after running the blade hilt through his jacket, then squished it against the punk's hands, he nestled it into the back of the kid's pants where it was visible, but impossibly far from his reach. With that, Snake then began to walk back to the alley and warehouses, the other two men following him back, though less confused now.

"Well, back to business, I guess..." Man muttered as they turned the corner into their alleyway again. Jorge nodded at him, and like that, the excitement was over, back to where they left off. Snake, however, was already knee-deep in contemplation again, though had he been paying attention to the two street men he would have been impressed with their well-honed resilience to otherwise rattling situations. But now, he could feel the wad of cash he'd taken from the punk as a token of their meeting burning a hole in his pocket and an idea he really did not want to implement bouncing around his head.

"Say," he began, internally wanting to punch himself for giving in to his whimsy again. _Oh why the hell not... maybe this one time and it'll finally leave me alone... _he thought, then continued, "So, I have three hundred some-odd dollars here that Jorge's friend left us for our troubles," he could see their eyes widen when he produced the thick stack of paper money from his pocket, "and I was thinking... I'll give you two the lot of it if you help me round up as many poor unsuspecting street people and get them to the shelter before the storm hits. Just until it gets too cold out, then all bets are off."

He waved the money in front of them, their gazes following it back and forth like it were a delicious treat. "But, I know it's none of your business and all, so I guess I could keep this for my troubles," he began to move the money into his pocket again. Jorge was the first to jump, with Man hardly a second behind him.

"Ok, ok, dude, just... I could get a new coat with that! Shit, I'll do whatever you want, just hand it over," Jorge exclaimed, jutting his hands out all grabby-like. "I mean... we ain't cold hearted bastards, y'know," he added, trying to regain some composure, "you coulda just really asked, you know really asked, and we would'a done it without the cash."

Snake nearly rolled his eyes, but instead pulled his coat on tightly and nodded his head towards the waterfront, "Yeah, whatever you say. Grab your shit, we've got people to find."

The three men, their brown and scruffy clothes making them seem like three sizes of some bizarre walking paper bags, began out of their alleyway, then separated strategically in their own direction to carry out their night's work. And although Snake had wished that this one whim of doo-goodery or charity or whatever he wanted to call it would be enough to appease whatever it was inside him that insisted he get involved in other people's lives, he knew that rather than being the end, this was merely a beginning. That, like many other things in his life, irritated and pleased him at the same time.


End file.
